Path to Ground
by Moxie-Proxie
Summary: The thud of dirt hitting the coffin filled his ears, as he followed behind Allison like a shadow through the rain. [AllisonNathan, Preseries]


She saw him again at Kevin's funeral. Hadn't seen him since the day she graduated medical school, and they went to their separate corners of the country. He stayed in Eureka under Henry's guidance, and she stayed on at Johns Hopkins in Maryland. There had been the occasional email or a nicely selected card on her birthday, but she never expected anything more.

He was off to change the world, and she and Kevin were going to heal it together. Young and silly in love. Neither she nor Kevin knew that Nathan - the third part of their trio - was in love with her too. She'd never noticed, Kevin was like a force of nature full of passion and humor that pulled her in. So magnetic that anything less failed to register on her romantic radar. He took up space and soaked up the light, he was a man made for greatness.

Nate could never speak his heart in big gestures, it was always in the little things. How he never forgot her birthday, knew she wanted to travel to India, and liked Neapolitan by the pint when she had a bad day. By the time she got the whole story from Professor Deacon, it was too late, they'd all made their choices. Nathan had smiled when he hugged her goodbye, said losing her was the only thing he'd ever regret. After promising to see Henry at home and shaking hands with Kevin, he'd left the celebration. She hadn't seen him since then.

Until today.

The service had just finished when it started to drizzle, the gray clouds rolled overhead. Raindrops slipped under the collar of her black coat, made icy trails down her neck. Plastered her hair to her forehead, cheeks and throat. She felt him more than saw him at first. His long shadow enveloped her, the gentle press of him behind her, the soft rustle of him shedding his coat.

"Don't," she whispered, brushing the fabric off her shoulders.

She didn't want the comfort of his shared warmth, the familiarity of his scent to drown her sorrows in. She'd rather hold to the chill that was slowly filling her from head to toe. Her fingers were numb, clutching a single red rose. Feeling the weight of the memorial sheet in her other hand, featuring birth dates and death dates in neatly printed rows. A meaningful prayer of hope and heaven beneath. She'd always believed, ever since she was a little girl in her grandmother's tiny church. Today she wanted none of the comfort the afterlife might try to offer.

"Allie," it was whispered against her hair, as he draped his heavy coat around her. "I'm not letting you get sick."

His mouth tipped up in a smile she couldn't see, at the way his coat appeared to have eaten her. Even in heels, there was a puddle of fabric around her feet that would get dirty. He didn't care, the woman inside the coat was what mattered most.

She pulled the fabric closer, liked the way it smelled too much. Sea water and cologne, the ghostly aroma of a vanilla cigar. Kevin loved them, and she knew Nathan must have smoked one in his honor today. She would always equate the scent of vanilla cigars with two entirely different men.

His hands rested on her shoulders, his touch fading as she stepped forward to rest a red rose on the polished mahogany box, before she pressed a kiss from her fingertips to the lid. She walked away with a long, determined stride because even though she wanted to be, she wasn't strong enough to watch Kevin being lowered into the ground.

Nathan watched as the memorial sheet fluttered to the wet grass, felt the weight of grief and responsibility settle heavy across his shoulders. She had no where to go, but she walked anyway, anything to be out of this place. Gently he pressed a hand on top of the closed casket, closed his eyes for a moment, then made himself look at the box and whisper a soft goodbye. The thud of dirt hitting the coffin filled his ears, as he followed behind Alison like a shadow through the rain.

---

Guilt swamped him, as he drove home from work, anxious to see to her. He was in love with a married - _widowed_ - woman, who was carrying his friend's baby. He shouldn't love her, but he couldn't help it. She's Allie, his Allie. Always had been, and no amount of miles between them could have extinguished that love. So he did everything else but say those words. The words he should've said before but couldn't, and now can but knows he shouldn't. Instead he brought her back to the brilliant, if slightly insane town that she used to call home. A town of well-meaning, sometimes scatterbrained geniuses, that would embrace her and the baby she didn't want to admit she's carrying. That day, when she said those two words and showed him the test results, he knew that someway, somehow she was meant to be here.

It still made his heart stop, even after three months of living with her, when he came home and saw her lying on the couch, a book splayed across her stomach. Bump already showing. The sleepy smile that she always gave him, when he lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed, still made his toes curl like a giddy little boy. He loved the feeling of her arms around his neck, head resting on his shoulder. Light as a dream and twice as beautiful.

Ignored her protests with a smile when he laid her in bed, said he'd be taking the couch again for the night. Found himself flipping through the baby name book, skimming over the names until he found one circled in blue ink. _Kevin_. Couldn't stop the goofy grin that took over his face, when he saw the name she'd written on the piece of paper tucked in the back of the book. _Kevin Nathaniel Blake_. Sunk down into the couch, bare feet on the table, staring at her soft flowing script. Smiling like an idiot, she'd given her son his name.

---

Alison found him there the next morning, long legs slung over the end of the couch. Her copy of _What to Expect When You're Expecting_ opened and dog-eared on his chest. She flipped through it, chuckled as the pages flicked by. It had been highlighted and underlined so much, she wondered if he was studying for some kind of exam.

"What?" he groggily rubbed his face, when her laughter woke him.

"Who's having this baby," she sat down on the coffee table, "me or you?"

"One of us has got to study," he grinned slowly. "You barely made it past the table of contents."

"I'm a doctor, Nate. I think I know what happens."

"Ah, yes," he got up and pulled her along with him, "but you're the one in the stirrups this time."

"Don't remind me."

She shuffled around the kitchen, and Nathan managed to contain his smile. Cooking had never been her forte. Grinning, he steered her to the counter and made her sit while he boiled water for tea.

"What do you want for breakfast, scrambled or omelette?" he asked, his back to her.

He peered into the miraculously stocked sub-zero fridge, silently thankful Fargo was willing to run just about any errand he asked. He'd probably starve without the fidgety assistant, or have a running tab with Vincent at the café.

"The baby scrambled?" she stared at him until he turned around.

"Your eggs," he gave her a sideways glance. "I said nothing about scrambling babies ..."

"Well, you were just talking about labor!" Alison tried to explain herself. "I couldn't hear you inside the fridge."

"Sure," he said. Looking at her like she needed medication, as he reached up and grabbed mugs from the cabinet.

"Honestly!" she couldn't stop giggling. It was a welcome sound after weeks of quiet grief.

"Maybe I should carry this kid ..." Nathan said, a throughly concerned look on his face.

"Oh," she pulled in breath to stop the giggles, "you just feel free to take over my uterus, Nathan Stark."

"I'm sure the town would love to see that," he smiled.

She watched him move around the fancy kitchen with the same confident grace he did in a lab, a conference room, or a lecture hall. Sometimes it was hard to imagine that the tall, sweet man in front of her had once been a shy, lanky outcast. She wondered if he could find the equally quiet, metal-mouthed girl under the surface of her own skin.

Watching him chop up ham and cheese and mix the omelette ingredients in a bowl, she caught his soft smile and wink. Remembered hours spent together in college when they'd hole up in their painfully tiny walk-up, and he'd cook on their hostile stove, just to save her and Kevin from making it through University on pizza alone. Remembered the three of them staying up until all hours of the night, sipping saké from the little sushi joint down the block and critiquing all their worst professors. It seemed like so long ago ...

While he made the eggs and popped the bread in the toaster, she grabbed the tea bags out of the pantry, smiling at the sight of the white plastic bottle at the front of the shelf. Prenatal vitamins. She'd been tumbling helplessly between grief and shock since Kevin's death, and hadn't taken the time to follow her own doctorly advice about vitamins an a healthy diet. Of course Nathan would remember. _Always good at the little things_, she thought with a smile.

"Nathan," she turned, holding the vitamins and the canister of tea, "do you have a crucial lack of folic acid that I need to know about?"

"What, no ..." he spotted the vitamin bottle, "I got those for you this weekend, I thought - you know - you and the baby might need them."

"Because you just happened to wandering through the vitamin aisle?" she stepped closer, her smile growing.

"Well no, not really ..."

She saw him fight the urge to shove his hands in his pockets and shuffle his feet, the usual signs of his social awkwardness. She'd already found the crib hidden under a tarp in his garage, polished dark wood, most likely shipped from Berkeley by his mother. He was trying to take care of them, trying to be their missing piece. It left her both speechless and terrified. The former because he always thought of the right thing to do, when she couldn't manage to do basic things like get out bed every morning. And the latter because she'd just put one man in the ground, she wasn't ready to open up like that to another. Even if it _was_ the only man on earth that knew her best.

"Nathan," she set the containers down on the counter, "I know what you're trying to do - I appreciate it, I really do. But you can't ... you can't be him."

He just stood there, confusion played clearly across his face. In the space of a few blinks, she watched his face - watched everything about him - transform from confusion to denial, to anger before ending at clear, sharp hurt. By the time it took him to turn back to the stove, she knew she'd said the wrong thing. The very thing she'd been trying _not_ to do, she'd managed to achieve anyway.

"Nate," her voice shook whether she wanted it to or not, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't - that wasn't my -"

"It's fine, Allie," his voice was soft. Gone was the sweetness and humor they'd shared only moments before.

Staring at his neck, his back still to her, she wanted to reach out. Touch him, let her fingertips meet the soft cotton of his shirt, but she couldn't make her feet close the distance that laid between them. Bridge the void that always kept them apart somehow. Staring at his shoulders she willed herself not to cry. The little voice yelling in her head, only made her throat close up tighter and the tears fall faster. She hated crying, hated feeling so out of control. She would rather throw the vitamin bottle at him, would rather have him yelling at her, anything was better than sitting in this silence. Surrounded by the quiet of his indifference.

So, she picked up the bottle and chucked it at the back of his head. It hit with an immensely satisfying thud before clattering to the floor. She always did have solid aim. He spun around so fast, he nearly whacked the pan with his hip and sent it flying. He managed to flick the burner off quickly, before facing her again.

"What the hell was that for?" he rubbed the sore spot, the headache already forming.

"Stop being so damn _nice_ to me."

Not exactly what she was planning on saying, but it was the first thing that flew out of her mouth. Like a switch had been flipped and the adrenaline rushed through her. Anger followed closely in in its wake.

"What?"

He clearly didn't understand where this was going, and she didn't have to self-control to backup and explain. She rushed forward, everything she'd held in for three months, trying to escape all at once.

"I hurt you, I said something that was out of line -"

"Allie, I said it was okay."

"No, no it's not," she hastily wiped away the tears, stepped closer. "You're not trying to be Kevin. I know that and you just - just let me say it -"

"Allie, I know you're dealing with a lot -"

"Don't, _don't_ Nathan," her fists curled at her side. "Stop treating me like I'm so fucking fragile. Get mad, yell at me!"

"I don't wanna be mad at you ..."

"Why not!" She stood less than two feet away now, and had to look up to meet his eyes.

"I don't want to fight with you, Alison."

"He died, Nathan. Kevin died, it doesn't mean you have to keep me in bubble wrap," she said. "I can take a hit."

"Allie," tears welled in his eyes, at the sound of the word he hadn't said out loud. _Died._

"Why do you keep treating me like this? Like I'm breakable, like I need to be taken care of, like I need you?"

"Because," he struggled to find the words, "you're my best friend, Allie."

He felt the tears making tracks down his skin. Felt like his insides were shaking; she was so very angry, and he was her punching bag of choice.

"Than yell at me," she continued. "When I say mean, stupid things because I'm mad, _yell_ at me."

"I don't want to yell at you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

The first hit landed on his upper-arm. Rocked him backward into the stove. The second one landed square in the shoulder, her fist like a curveball smacking into him. So unexpected it took him a long moment to process what happened. By the time she moved for the third punch, he was able to block her, his hand covering her fist.

He stood there, holding her fist and staring down at her with dark green eyes. She hated the pain she found there. Tried to pull away, fought and struggled, shoved him against the stove again and again. But he didn't let her get away, didn't let go. Wrapped her tight in his arms, holding her to his chest.

"It's all your fault," her shouting dissolved into tears. "It's all your fault he died ... he was coming here to see you ..."

"I know," he paused. Seeing Kevin in that twisted wreck of a car. He remembered coming to the scene of the accident because Henry called him, asked him to identify his friend so Allie wouldn't have to. "I know."

She sank into the sturdiness of him, the strength of his arms wrapped around her, the beating pulse of his heart in her ear. Felt her spine unravel as he held her up. Her fingers curled into his shirt as her sobs filled his ears, as he felt her shake against him like she was falling to pieces. Everything poured out of her in sobs, snot and tears on his shirt.

"We will get through this Allie," he whispered into her hair. "I promise."

"I'm so mad at him for dying."

"Me too," he braced himself against the stove, holding her up as his tears dripped into her hair.

Anger he didn't know he'd been carrying flared up in his thoughts. Anger that Kevin had the gall to leave her like this, that he died knowing full well she had no backup plan, no one else to turn to. What of kind of friend, what kind of man did that to his pregnant wife? _The kind that didn't plan on dying at thirty, Nate_, Kevin's voice whispered in the back of his head.

---

When she found him later that night, smack dab in the middle of what looked to be the remains - or maybe it was the beginnings - of a baby crib, she had a hard time meeting his eyes. Covering someone in your very potent grief dictated a level of intimacy she wasn't sure she was ready to have with him. A man who clearly loved her enough to be beaten, sobbed on and yelled at. And he still cooked her breakfast afterward. She'd never felt so guilty while eating an omelette before.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" she sat on the edge of - his? her? their? - the bed.

"Can't be that hard," he murmured, turning the directions over for the third time. "It's just a crib."

"Have you found the English directions yet?"

"I gave up on those, trying to translate the Finnish ones instead."

"How's that coming along?"

"Not so good."

"Want me to call your mom?"

"No," he was staring at a slat and what looked to be the top railing, trying to figure out they how in all of the world they fit together. "The directions make it look like magic, I swear."

"Maybe if you found the directions written in your actual _native tongue _..."

"I'm gonna give you native tongue in a minute, smarty pants," he stuck his tongue out, tossing the directions at her.

"I could call Henry," she flipped through her language choices. Finnish, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. The English directions appeared to be the only ones the manufacturer didn't provide.

"Oh, for the love of - call my mother first."

"Why? You love Henry."

"Hmm, like a hole in my brain," he muttered trying to find Tab C to slide into Niche J. "He can look at anything and know how to fix it, it disgusts me."

"Jealous?" she chuckled.

"Yes, but I will absolutely lie about that in public."

She laughed, falling back on the bed. It been such a long morning. The fighting, the sobbing, and now she was laughing while he assembled a crib for her son. She felt disconnected, set adrift in a sea of emotions she was just beginning to process. Nathan though ... he was her rock, her anchor. Solid in every sense of the word. Her path to ground, when everything else spun out of control around her.

"Nathan?" she gazed up at the ceiling, her feet hanging off the bed.

"Alley-cat?" he said.

She could hear the smile in his voice, "I love you."

"Guess what?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you too."

She pulled her feet up and curled on the bed, letting the silence linger between them, listening to sound of him cursing and clanging, as he continued trying to decode the mystery of the crib. Finally, when he'd gotten all of nowhere and nearly severed a thumb with the screwdriver, he flopped on the bed beside her.

"About earlier -"

"Alison -"

"Shut up, let me finish."

When he didn't say anything more, she continued. Toyed with the hem of her soft blue maternity shirt as she spoke, missed the way the the glimpses of her belly made him smile.

"I don't blame you ... for Kevin's accident. It wasn't your fault - I was upset - I'm sorry for saying that. I'm sorry for everything ... I don't know what I'd do without you most days."

"Probably be in dire need of a shower," he smiled, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead.

"Nate," she swallowed, fighting back tears. "If I lost you ..."

Her voice cracked and it made his heart throb, gently he drew her close.

"You can't lose me, Allie," he said. "You can punch me and yell at me all you want, I'm not going anywhere."

"I just ..."

"You tried to push me away before I could leave you. I know." His voice softened, "I've done it before."

She nodded, wiped away tears as she felt his hand drift to her belly, stroking over the taut skin. His touch was warm and tender, she almost drifted of as he traced patterns on her belly. The nudge woke her up, watched her as own skin rippled, stirred by Kevin's kicks. Like the beating of small watery wings under Nathan's palm.

"Did you feel that?"

Her hand was already beside his before he even finished the sentence.

"He's never done that before, he's only fourteen weeks," slowly, she felt around.

"So?"

"Kicking usually starts at sixteen weeks, don't you remember _anything_ from high-school?"

"I'm sorry, the female reproductive cycle was never high on my priorities," he smiled.

"No, you were too busy trying to figure out how to blow up Sheriff Cobb's office in your spare time," she teased.

"Well, Henry said I needed to find a hobby ..."

"You nearly killed LoJack. That dog has yet to forgive you, you know?"

"He does hold one hell of a grudge ..."

He knelt on bed, all but bounced in his excitement. Alison laughed, as he pushed her shirt up and stroked her belly again.

"I think he went to sleep ..." she said, the fluttering seemed to have stopped.

"So let's wake him up!"

"No!" she laughed.

"Why not?" he was nearly pouting.

"Oh for goodness sake," she sighed, shoving a pillow under her head.

Grinning, he lay on his side, head by her stomach as he started to stroke her skin again.

"Hey Kevin," he whispered. "Wake up and say hi to your mom and me."

_Kick kick kick _against her skin and they were both transfixed. Nathan's pupils wide with wonder as he watched her stomach, an she found herself watching him. All she could think about was running her fingers through his hair, stroking his cheek. Tears slipped down her temples because Nate was here, and Kevin wasn't. It felt wrong to love another man so much, but he was talking to her belly, and it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Feeling her baby swim inside her. She wondered if it would always be bittersweet to look into her son's eyes and see the man she loved in their reflection.

"Will it ever stop hurting?" she whispered.

He didn't answer right away, tracing the curve of her belly with his fingertips. Silence lingered between them as Nathan turned over the question in his mind. Unaware that she watched his every movement. The brush of his fingertips on her skin, the tilt of his head as he thought, the way he rubbed the thumb and fore-finger of his other hand together. She seen him do that same simple movement since he was a teenage boy, remembered how it helped him focus. The little details that made him whole.

"No, I don't think it'll ever go away," he said. "I think you just learn how to carry it as time passes, learn how to keep it from defining who you are. You'll always love him, always miss him."

"Speaking from experience?" she asked, as she struggled to grab another pillow.

He grabbed it, gently slid his arm under her knees and tucked it in place. Carefully pulled her shirt back down, briefly traced the outline of her belly-button, before moving back up to his spot by her side. Found himself much too close this time, and his lips brushed hers before his brain could tell him to stop. She was soft and warm, and she didn't fight when he deepened the kiss. Tenderly, cautiously, he pulled her on top of him. Holding her face between the palms of his hands, stroking her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. Her hands on his shoulders, tentatively touching his neck, before threading her fingers through his thick hair.

For the first time in four months, she felt like she could breathe again. Felt like maybe, just maybe it would all be all right again. Because Nathan loved her, this beautiful man loved her, and the baby she carried. It didn't matter that she was healing, it didn't matter that the baby wasn't his. He had loved her for years and now she knew, that she could love him back. She needed that love - needed him - more than she needed to hold onto her grief.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered when he pulled away, the regret clear in his eyes. "Anything but sorry."

"I love you, Allie."

When she pressed her forehead against his and smiled, it was all he needed. All that mattered was the three of them, together. She wrapped herself around him as he stroked her back, closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. Listened to the steady pattern of his breathing. He was her best-friend, the man she'd always needed but never knew she wanted until today. He was her way home. Her path to ground.


End file.
